The climax of Mark's Gospel is the resurrection, without which Jesus' death, though noble, would be indescribably tragic. But in the resurrection he is declared to be the Son of God with power (Ro 1:4).
  The enemies of Jesus have always had trouble with this. The Jewish leaders thought, after the crucifixion that they had got rid of Him. So in 16:6 of tonights Gospel we read: .He has risen  He is not here. See the place where they laid him!  .So, equally his enemies have always had a problem with the empty tomb. There have been several attempts to explain away the empty tomb. It’s difficult to maintain it wasn’t.
  But the attempt to explain away the empty tomb is nothing new. One of the ‘oldest chestnuts’ we find right from the start for in Matthew 28:12-13 we have
  When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, "You are to say, `His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep
Now this won’t hold water. Indeed at the time the priests had to bribe the soldiers. If they had been suspected of sleeping on guard they would have faced instant execution. Roman soldiers virtually never went to sleep on duty!
  There have been theories that the women went to the wrong tomb? Yet, even in this unlikely event (as we heard tonight, they saw where Jesus’ body was laid by Joseph of Arimathea, they saw the stone rolled away! If they were in the wrong place this wouldn’t have impressed them.
   There‘s another striking fact. While it may seem incredible to us, the gospel writers generally refrain from using the empty tomb as a basis for faith! Furthermore, the stone was not rolled away to let Jesus out; he did not need open doors to move about (Luke 24:31, 36; John 20:19, 26). The stone was removed to begin communicating the resurrection to the followers of Jesus. But the empty tomb did not convince them that Jesus was alive! It was at first frustrating to the disciples and “seemed to them like idle tales” (Luke 24:11). Would anyone constructing a story and trying to prove the resurrection use such an approach? These testimonies have an element of authenticity that inventors of stories seldom duplicate.
 
Jesus is risen.
Now there’s another myth spread about by Jesus’ enemies today. It goes like this. Jesus body wasn’t raised from the dead: it was merely a specially incarnated body which the disciples saw. Sadly, even bishops put this one about. But let’s recall some words of Paul from 1 Corinthians 15:
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day
It’s interesting and significant that Paul counts not only the Lord’s death for our sins and his resurrection as of ‘first importance’, but also his burial. At one level, of course, he is just saying that the Lord Jesus Christ really died. One of the lies that the enemies of Jesus put about is that he didn’t really die, but rather that he just swooned on the Cross and in the cool of the tomb he revived. Then- badly beaten, suffering from blood loss he was able to push back from inside the massive stone and run away from the Roman guards!

But no! There’s much more at stake here; much of greater significance.
Paul wrote this part of 1 Corinthians because some in Corinth actually said that bodily resurrection was an impossibility. They were arguing from Greek philosophy, which was very different to the holistic view of man’s nature which was the Hebrew- and, for that the Biblical, view. Here I’d like to quote from the NIV Study Bible on 1 Corinthians 15:12-19
  So, some at Corinth were saying that there was no resurrection of the body, and Paul draws a number of conclusions from this false contention. If the dead do not rise from the grave, then (1) "not even Christ has been raised" (v. 13); (2) "our preaching is useless" (v. 14); (3) "so is your faith" (v. 14); (4) we are "false witnesses" that God raised Christ from the dead (v. 15); (5) "your faith is futile" (v. 17); (6) "you are still in your sins" (v. 17) and still carry the guilt and condemnation of sin; (7) "those also who have fallen asleep [have died] in Christ are lost" (v. 18); and (8) "we are to be pitied" who "only for this life . . . hope in Christ" (v. 19) and put up with persecution and hardship. v12   Christ has been raised. Christ was raised historically on the third day. Paul uses this same verb form (that expresses the certainty of Christ's bodily resurrection) a total of seven times in this passage (vv. 4,12-14,16-17,20).
  If Christ had been just revived as a spirit it would have been a spectacle, but it would have made no difference for the rest of the human race. As in Adam all die... And it’s ‘in Adam’ that we die; we die bodily and we die in sin. Unless...we believe in the glorious saving power and bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ

For us in the here and now, what does the empty tomb mean?
1.It means that Jesus is risen. He is alive; He is alive among us as I speak these words. The same Jesus who taught the Kingdom, who taught us what Kingdom living means; the same Jesus who worked miracles of healing, because He has compassion is alive today. And alive today He chooses to work in those in whom He lives; those to whom He has given faith. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. In the same way. With the same power and authority. The angels said to the women at the tomb, in effect: “See where he lay, then Go, tell”. He is alive and He desires to work through us with His compassion, with His power; with His mission.
2. Jesus rose bodily. He is concerned with the whole person. He isn’t just concerned with how we relate to Him spiritually. He is concerned with our minds and with our bodies. You are not your own, says the apostle Paul, you were bought at a price. Honour God, therefore, with your bodies. God desires that we honour Him with our whole being and desires it for his own glory and also for our good.

We are few here tonight. But impact might we have if we were to honour God with all our being and were to live in the power of, and with the compassion of Jesus?
 
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